English Horticultural Sector (Horticultural Sector Committee Report)

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Friday 19th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure and a privilege to serve as a member of this Horticultural Sector Committee, which was so ably chaired by my noble friend Lord Redesdale. I thank my committee colleagues for making our meetings enjoyable and informative, and I wish to add my thanks to those already given to the clerks and expert witnesses, all of whom managed to enable the committee to cover considerable ground effectively in a short period of time. The visits we made, within London and without, were particularly useful.

Of the issues raised in the report, there are three I wish to revisit. The first is education, referred to in recommendations 22 to 30 in the report. We were constantly reminded by many witnesses of the value of contact for young people with nature, in the classroom and outdoors—“Green time, not screen time”, as one witness put it. Beneficial effects through the outside world for the purposes of general well-being are appreciated by educationalists and the medical profession alike, but the long shadow of Covid means that there will now be a generation that needs exposure to and education about nature more than any previous one. So it is particularly frustrating that the Government say there is no room on the national curriculum for the subject of horticulture as a stand-alone topic, as highlighted by my noble friend Lady Fookes. I wonder whether the Government might reconsider this point.

The second issue I wish to revisit is that of food security and our recommendation 13. At the time the committee was sitting, the unseasonably cold and wet weather in Spain and Morocco had curtailed the availability of salads and tomatoes, with empty shelves in shops. The evidence given highlighted the small percentage of such crops grown in the UK in a normal year, thus adding to the susceptibility of annual shortages. As a consequence of the war in Ukraine and attendant energy cost increases, and with uncertainty attached to the availability of seasonal labour, many growers were cutting back. At the time, these seemed like exceptional headwinds, but the particularly wet weather this winter has brought about further jeopardy to the domestic supply chain, with crops unharvested from last autumn and crops not yet planted this spring. Can the Government give further thought to helping domestic horticultural producers wherever possible, particularly on the vexed issue of water storage—on which I hope that the Minister might comment—so that our percentage of self-sufficiency in horticultural products is not reduced further?

The third issue relates to research, development and innovation support from the Government in our recommendations 55 and 56. My noble friend Lord Carter of Coles has already slightly stolen my thunder on this point, because I too was going to refer to the site visit that we made to the vertical farming enterprise in Kent. This addressed positively many of the factors that the committee had heard negatively about, such as seasonal labour, energy and water consumption costs, and the detrimental effects of poor weather, which of course are not relevant to vertical farming at all. The disappointing note in our visit was that the funding for this enterprise and its planned follow-up site was coming from a US pension fund. Given that it is government policy to look for more inward investment from UK pension funds and insurance companies to infrastructure and businesses that might develop a public listing in due course, can the Minister give assurances that all possible financial help is given to similar horticultural enterprises in the future, along the lines of R&D tax alliances and preferential access to domestic capital markets?

Woodland Cover Protection and Grey Squirrel Control

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Thursday 25th May 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest, as in the register, as an owner and trustee of woodlands. I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, on securing this important debate.

The Government have an ambitious target to promote new woodland planting—all very laudable, albeit currently unrealistic in terms of the numbers forecast—and have made this a keystone of ELMS. What does not seem to attract sufficient government attention, however, is the ongoing maintenance of existing woodland. Rather than having overmature woodland and unmanaged plantations going back and, in so doing, failing to maximise their carbon sequestration potential, the Government should be encouraging much more effective woodland management plans for both thinning and coppicing. A more efficient and vibrant carbon trading market can develop as an additional benefit off the back of this. I have mentioned this to my good friend the Minister in the past and I ask him to look at it again.

I am old enough to remember the issues that farming faced with rabbits before the introduction of that man-manufactured disease myxomatosis. While I do not wish the introduction of a similar disgusting cure to be foisted on the grey squirrel population, the scale of the problem is similar and we need to find a solution that is as radical in its outcome. Both are invasive alien species after all: the rabbit was introduced by the Romans and the grey squirrel by misguided owners of country estates in the 19th century.

Control used to take the form of poisoning, trapping and shooting. The first is now problematic, the second is labour-intensive at a time when labour is in particularly short supply and the third is haphazard. Poking dreys in the spring with aluminium poles also requires a supply of fit men and is no work for the faint-hearted. It is also a filthy occupation if the dreys land on your head.

We need to fall back on another solution, which is now present in the form of oral contraception by means of a fertility control vaccine being researched by the Red Squirrel Survival Trust, to which I am pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, referred. I take this opportunity to congratulate him on all the work he has been doing in this area. I have contributed to this excellent cause financially, and I urge as many people as are able to—certainly all woodland owners—to contribute too. Combined with traditional means of control, it will provide the opportunity to reduce numbers of grey squirrels to something acceptable.

Why is there a need for this? I have been looking at the damage wrought by grey squirrels on a three year-old chestnut coppice and a beautiful cover of young hornbeam. Last summer’s drought seemed to make the grey squirrel population even more vigorous than usual, and I estimate that, of the damaged and barked shoots on each stool, only 10% are showing any signs of regrowth—a dramatic reduction in both the commercial volume and the value of the crop. Am I becoming increasingly paranoid about grey squirrel vigour, reflecting something referred to earlier? They seem to be getting smaller in size yet are reproducing over a longer time span throughout the year. It is no coincidence that squirrel numbers are increasing alongside decreasing woodland bird numbers, given their liking for birds’ eggs.

With the current level of threat from the grey squirrel population, what choices should be made by woodland owners seeking to plant if the monoculture of softwoods is not on their agenda? Perhaps the Minister could indicate how he thinks the planting of oak and beech can prosper without controlling the squirrel population. Where does this fit within the yet to be updated 2014 grey squirrel action plan? While we are about it, is there a deer action plan waiting in the wings?

Avian Influenza: Game Birds

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Wednesday 18th January 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Colgrain]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what progress they have made in determining a link between avian influenza and game birds; and in respect of any such link, what plans they have to ban the rearing and release of game birds, given the impact that this could have on the rural labour market.

[The Minister of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

I again declare my farming interests as set out in the register. We have strict biosecurity rules in place to limit the spread of avian influenza, including for the catching up and release of game birds, which are not permitted to be released in disease control zones or in avian influenza prevention zones with housing measures. The Government will keep the policy regarding future game bird releases under review and will take into consideration the outcomes of the risk assessments beyond risk levels and the ongoing avian influenza outbreak.

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his reply, which in large part is reassuring. Nevertheless, he will know that plans need to be made over the next few weeks to decide whether many shoots, and the direct and indirect employment that goes with them, will continue for the new season. The financial contribution of shooting to the rural economy has been put annually at over £2 billion, with the hospitality sector in particular being a major beneficiary. Thousands of full-time jobs are at risk, as well as many part-time jobs. Can my noble friend the Minister indicate when he thinks any formal guidance on other issues affecting shooting can be given, such as the banning of the import of eggs or poults? Given the recent pandemic experience gained from the autumn migration, to what extent does he think that the spring migration arrivals will make a difference to current avian influenza levels?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Because this outbreak was originally brought by migrating birds, we follow the patterns of migrating birds very closely. The noble Lord is right that there is a concern in the autumn as migrating birds come in and move either south to north or west to east. We continue to monitor that. The increase in cases in poultry settings is slightly below what we feared it would be and we hope that trend continues. On the noble Lord’s other point, he is absolutely right that the businesses will want to de-risk as much as they can. We are trying to support them by giving as much information as we can. That is why we have just given guidance, on the basis of scientific evidence, on the practice of catching up birds to breed from later this year. That is now published.

Tree Health in England

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Thursday 9th June 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as a woodland owner, sadly with far too many dead and dying ash trees in the woods. Shortly after the then Prime Minister David Cameron asked us all to hug a hoodie, I was told that hugging an ash tree was an indication as to whether the tree was mature enough to withstand Chalara. The thinking was that if you embraced an ash tree and your fingers could meet around its back, it was deemed small and immature, and thus susceptible to the disease. If your fingers could not touch, it might be robust enough to resist. I have to report, with much sadness, that this unscientific approach has not proved accurate and that many of the trees I tried to embrace and thought might survive have not.

I mention this because it is no less plausible an approach to identifying those vulnerable to the disease than many others that have been put forward. I am told that approximately 10% of the ash on the continent are surviving the disease, not 20% as the Woodland Trust states. Consequently, there should be a similar percentage of trees surviving here in England but, notwithstanding what the Minister will no doubt say, there seems to be a woeful lack of science currently at work.

Dutch elm disease occurred decades ago and it is only now that inward trials are taking place with resistant whips from UK stock—one site, I am delighted to say, is located in my own county of Kent. At the end of this month, a symposium is taking place at Kew on elm trees and their associated diseases. Given how long it has taken for such a symposium to come about, what does this mean for ash trees? Can the Minister tell us how long we will have to wait before we have similar developments at work on ash?

The Tree Council says that the ash population may recover over 50 years. I fear that this is fanciful; it has not proved to be the case with elms, and there is no prospect of an indigenation of elms regrowing yet. Is there really any meaningful difference between ash and elm? Forest Research says that its ash seed orchard should begin producing resistant trees from the mid-2030s, which really does seem a lifetime away.

For a whole variety of unrelated reasons, we seem to be being visited by one tree disease or pest after another, the spruce Ips beetle being one of the most recent. As my noble friend the Minister knows—I thank him and his department for all their helpful responses to date on this—the compensation payment claims that relate to this one disease are currently clogging up Forestry Commission resources, with the consequence that some felling programmes are being delayed. Disease firewall benefits are thus not coming into being.

Can the Minister give assurances that the necessary staffing resources are being deployed to overcome this impediment? Can he indicate what work is being done to encourage the introduction and planting of new tree species that will be resistant to the climate changes already being experienced, as well as those anticipated? Can he also direct more effort towards the granting of funding for the management of existing woodland, particularly coppicing, rather than directing funds towards new plantings, which are often taking place in inappropriate locations with inappropriate species, as my noble friend Lord Caithness alluded to earlier?

Trees: Ips typographus

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Colgrain]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the arrival of the tree beetle Ips typographus in spruce trees in the southeast of England on the timber industry in the United Kingdom; and what steps they are taking to prevent further damage.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Benyon) (Con)]

My Lords, swift action is being taken to eradicate Ips typographus on 13 sites in the south-east. Infested trees are being removed, a surveillance programme is in place and emergency legislation has been introduced to reduce the risk of spread. Both Norway and Sitka spruce are susceptible species, but the pest has been detected on only Norway spruce in the outbreak area. The commercial standing value of Norway spruce in this area is estimated at £16 million.

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my interests in the register. I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his reply and to the officials from Defra and the Forestry Commission, who are being so effective in endeavouring to contain the current infestations to prevent a further catastrophe that could prove comparable to Dutch elm disease and ash Chalara. Given that this beetle is airborne and has been blown in from Europe, does he not agree that establishing a cordon sanitaire is fated to be ineffectual? Thus, does he not further agree that instruction should be given to ensure that spruce trees are not planted as part of Her Majesty’s green canopy, and that the same should be true of the Government’s own new tree-planting initiatives?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are grateful, in turn, to my noble friend for his speedy resolution of a particular problem where he lives. He is right that this is a containment problem. We have an area that goes as far as Greater London and takes in parts of East Sussex and West Sussex, all of Kent and parts of Surrey. We are working hard to remove every spruce tree in that area. We are working with landowners, using aerial assets to identify where spruce trees exist so that we can create that cordon sanitaire, which will prevent this beetle from spreading over from the continent and thereby further into the United Kingdom. I will get back to him on the Queen’s canopy. That is a very important issue. I think we are using only native species.

Farming Rules for Water

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Monday 1st November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord will agree that there is a problem here, with watercourses and rivers affected by a variety of different pollutants, some of them from farmland. The Code of Good Agricultural Practice, going back to 1985, was the basis of the rule that now applies. We understand that it is challenging for farmers and are working closely to achieve clarity. The Minister for Agriculture, my friend Victoria Prentis, has set up a working group with the NFU, the Environment Agency and others. It is seeking to iron out these problems urgently so that, from next year, farmers will be much clearer on how to apply the rule.

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

Have the Government considered using a risk-based approach to the autumn application of organic material? This would allow continued application of such organic material in the autumn on arable land where the risk to water is considered low, rather than the current blanket ban. It would also assist to reduce the requirement for artificial fertilisers and the environmental costs associated with their manufacture.

Environmental Land Management Schemes

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Like the noble Earl, I certainly recognise the need to provide further certainty. That is why in November we published the agricultural transition plan, which set out in detail how we will phase out direct payments and will support the sector to contribute to environmental goals and to be profitable and economically sustainable without subsidy. Since then, we have launched the initial farm resilience fund, opened the Countryside Stewardship scheme to further applications and published a consultation on delinking and the lump-sum exit scheme. More than 2,000 farmers have applied to pilot the sustainable farming incentive. Across the summer, we will provide further information on early rollout of the sustainable farming incentive, the farming in protected landscapes programme and our tree health pilot, and we will announce the successful applicants for the farming resilience fund.

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to his new role. Will he confirm that the results of the ELMS trials will be available to all and, in particular, that it will be possible to compare like-for-like soil types and typographies? Will he also confirm the possibility of carbon credits being applied more broadly across existing woodland and coppice, as opposed to the present eligibility for new woodland planting only?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

I am grateful for the kind comments of welcome. I am living proof that you can boil cabbage twice: it is very nice to be back at the department. We are introducing three schemes that reward the delivery of environmental benefits: the sustainable farming incentive, the local nature recovery scheme and the landscape recovery scheme. The noble Lord is entirely right to talk about the importance of soils. They are fundamental to the first two schemes. As far as carbon credits are concerned, this is a huge opportunity for the farming community, particularly in getting some private sector investment to supplement farm incomes. I hope that we can have a clear system that will operate very soon for farmers to access.

Environmental Land Management Schemes

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, as we said in consideration of the Agriculture Bill, access will be part of the schemes, and work is under way in those areas. I look forward to working with your Lordships to ensure that there is a rollout of not only the environmental advancements but access where it will have considerable benefits for people.

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

Can the Minister please confirm that all the information gathered from the ELMS pilot tests and trials will in due course become available to the public? Can he also indicate when sufficient information will become available about eligibility for tree planting under the schemes, given that we are already half way through this planting season?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, on the tree policy, anyone signing up to a grant agreement to plant woodland now will not be unfairly disadvantaged when ELM is introduced. It is very important that we proceed with planting trees. I think my noble friend referred to transparency. Yes, the whole point about the pilot is to be clear about learning which areas work well and which do not. This is so that, when we roll out ELM in 2024, all of these features will mean that it will work satisfactorily and well.

Agriculture Bill

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 10th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, I refer to my farming interests as set out in the register. There are a number of aspects of this Bill that are causing concern to the farming community and on which I have had many representations. I am sure that many noble Lords will want to continue to discuss the principal ones among them, such as food security, high animal welfare standards, the timetable attached to the reduction of the basic payment scheme in advance of any financial details consequent on the introduction of the new ELMs, and the need to maintain domestic food production. There are other aspects of the Bill that lack clear explanation. Two principal areas of concern are the definitions of natural capital and greater public access. It is uncomfortable progressing with this Bill when such critical areas lack clarity. However, will the Minister give a response to three other aspects of the Bill in particular?

The first is the degree of financial support the Government will undertake to provide for our agricultural colleges and other places of education. Given that the university and college structure has already come under severe and sustained financial pressure, which I fear will only increase, can he assure the House that support will be maintained for the current apprenticeship schemes? These will be important at any time, but given the anticipated high rate of national unemployment envisaged across the country, particularly among the young, such schemes have a vital role to play for both rural industry and the individuals who enrol. We must provide a well-educated labour force to bring about the technical and scientific changes that we will seek to introduce to maintain our competitive global position in agricultural production.

The second question relates to forestry. All the mainstream political parties included ambitious tree planting targets in their manifestos before the last election. The reality is that unless more funding is provided, both for initial planting and subsequent maintenance, there is no realistic likelihood of even a small percentage of these targets being achieved. Can the Minister give some comfort on this point, too?

Lastly, as a result of the recommendations put forward last year by the ad hoc committee on the rural economy, of which I was a member, the Minister has undertaken to give an annual report on rural-proofing. I suggest that Defra undertakes a similar annual report on food security, rather than the five-yearly report proposed in the Bill.

Tree Pests and Diseases

Lord Colgrain Excerpts

Thursday 13th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Colgrain (Con)]

My Lords, it is sobering to consider that not many of us alive today remember what the English countryside looked like before the ravages of Dutch elm disease. It is for those of us who do remember to draw a parallel between that cataclysm and the one we are told is about to descend on us with ash dieback, which I think will alter the countryside to a far greater degree than most can appreciate. It is timely that we are having this debate, and I congratulate my noble and learned friend Lord Hope and the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, on securing it.

I served recently on your Lordships’ ad hoc Rural Economy Committee. In our report we laid emphasis on the importance of a place-based approach. This is particularly true of any discussion about woodland tree pests and diseases, where my personal experience and observations relate specifically to Kent. We have two tree types most at risk from disease: the native oak, and the sweet chestnut, historically an import but which has now become part of our woodland vernacular.

With the Chatham dockyard nearby and the oaks of England providing the crucial first line of defence in the construction of ships of the line for the Royal Navy from Elizabethan to Napoleonic times, oaks and Kent come naturally in the same sentence. Oak dieback and acute oak decline have been evident for a number of years. We have an ongoing monitoring programme, and in many instances it seems difficult to distinguish dieback from the other diseases from which the oak suffers, such as defoliation by the oak processionary moth. Certain gradual and sudden deaths are problematic to diagnose, with some people maintaining that perhaps certain individual trees have been weakened by the effects of global warming—on which I have my doubts. Oak and ash trees dying across our landscape would make it nigh on unrecognisable, and any science that can be funded to help arrest such a tragedy should be hugely encouraged.

Kent has many tens of thousands of acres of sweet chestnut, a versatile wood used historically for pit props in east Kent coalfields, hop poles when we had a vibrant beer industry, charcoal when London depended on that fuel source, and fencing materials. It is still valued for the last and is an excellent biomass fuel source, given the intensity of its burn. The arrival of sweet chestnut blight has given us cause for huge concern. While it seems to be contained currently, it has brought home the need for the proper monitoring of imports and for endless in-field or in-wood vigilance.

Those who lived through the great storm of 1987 remember its immediate effects, but those who were in the eye of it continue to live with its consequences. For us in west Kent, the obliteration of the deer fences at the National Trust’s Knole Park resulted in the introduction to the locality of a fallow deer herd population that has been impossible to control. The effect on natural regeneration of native woodland has been devastating and catastrophic, as has the effect on ground-nesting birds when all natural cover has been grazed away. There are said to be more deer in England now than at any time in our history, which will have a severely detrimental effect on self-sown and self-selecting species. Advocates of rewilding who want to include the introduction of deer in that process should realise the disadvantages this can produce.

However, the foreign invader that has taken most advantage of the devastation wrought by the storm is the rhododendron ponticum, another persistent and vigorous invader that leaves a barren undercanopy that is hostile to all our native fauna and flora. Along with other plants introduced originally for Victorian gardens, such as Japanese knotweed, it is expensive and time-consuming to deal with and should be in the bull’s-eye for any new forestry grant programme that emanates from the Agriculture Bill.

Last but by no means least is the destroyer of much new tree growth, the grey squirrel—evidenced by brown strips of barked saplings and dead new growth in plantation and coppice—another pest introduced for aesthetic reasons with no appreciation of the damage it could do if left unchecked, not least to our native red squirrel, birds’ eggs and unfledged chicks. It seems we are unable to control it—a view that probably has much in common with the prevailing wisdom of our grandparents’ generation about the rabbit, which in its millions was devastating field and woodland crops. That was controlled in the end by the advent of myxomatosis. Let us hope that scientists can come up with a more humane solution for the grey squirrel, but a solution there must be if we are to encourage a vibrant commercial woodland industry.

We can expect to have to deal with natural and weather-related disasters, and we are at the mercy of windborne spores and pests, such as ash cholera and the box moth, but what we can prevent we must guard against, such as the import of disease on young plants and the release into the wild of animals that will upset our wonderful, historic, native ecosystem. We should also guard against our own ill-thought-out measures such as plastic tree guards, which blight our woodland for decades and leave permanent pollution.